out to say "No" with determined hostility when he
remembered Mrs. Clarke. He had come here; he was, he supposed, going to
stay here for some days at least; of course he must face things.

"Yes," he said gruffly.

In an easy, agreeable manner the stranger explained that he was Cyril
Vane, second secretary of the British Embassy, and a friend of Mrs.
Clarke's, and that he had come down at her request to meet Dion, and to
tell him that there was a charming room reserved for him at the Belgrad
Hotel.

"I'll walk up with you if you like," he added, in a casual voice. "It's
no distance. That your luggage?"

He put it in the charge of a porter from the hotel.

"I'm over at Therapia just now. The Ambassador hopes to see you. He's a
delightful fellow."

He talked pleasantly, and looked remarkably unobservant till they
reached the hotel, where he parted from Dion.

"I dare say I shall see you soon. Very glad to do anything I can for
you. Mrs. Clarke lies at the Villa Hafiz. Any one can tell you where it
is."

He walked coolly away in the sun, looking like an immense fair baby in
his thin, light-colored clothes.

"Does he know?" thought Dion, looking after him.

Then he went up into his bedroom which looked out upon the sea. When the
luggage had been brought in and the door was shut, he sat down on the
edge of the bed and stared at the polished uncarpeted floor.

"Why have I come here? What have I to do here?" he thought.

He missed the uproar of Pera. It had exercised a species of pressure
upon his soul, a deadening influence.

Ever since Robin's death he had lived in towns, and had walked about
streets. He had been for a time in Paris, then in Marseilles, where he
had stayed for more than two months haunted by an idea of crossing over
to Africa and losing himself in the vastness of the lands of the
sun. But something had held him back, perhaps a dread of the immense
loneliness which would surely beset him on the other side of the sea;
and he had gone to Geneva, then to Zurich, to Milan, Genoa, Naples,
Berlin and Budapest. From Budapest he had come to Constantinople. He had
known the loneliness of cities, but an instinct had led him to avoid
the loneliness of the silent and solitary places. There had been
an atmosphere of peace in quiet Welsley. He was afraid of such an
atmosphere and had sought always its opposite.

"Why have I come here?" he thought again.

In this small place he felt exposed, almost as if he